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only system administrator account appears on login screen

System has 3 accounts: Administrator password protected, and two standard user accounts. The guest account is off.

On both startup or "swittch user" the login screen only shows the system admin account icon and the password field is waiting for input. Although the two standard user accounts still show up in the "manage users" control panel utility.

Problems started as "the user profile service failed the logon". Logon screen showed all three accounts, but one of the stanrd user accounts couldn't be successfully logged into.

Followed http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947215 method #1 to edit registry and rename/copy/edit the S-1-5 keys. There was a S-1-5 .bak for the problem account. After editing the registry, and upon reboot only the system administrator account appeared.

Used windows restore to try to go back before the problems. The first restore point I picked failed to "install" on reboot, reported that either the restore point had problems or anti-virus program was blocking the restore. Disabled AVG, still wouldn't "apply" the restore. So I picked an earlier point in time, that restore installed without errors. The system has been rebooted several times, windows has applied patches on one of the reboots.

I tried a few other things and got non repeatable results. Once created a new standard user account. The "other user" logon icon appeared for "switch user". I tried login into one of the standard user accounts and it succeeded. I have since deleted this fourth account.

My wife logs into one of the standard accounts. I would like to get that working again. Since I don't know what is going on I am asking for advice.

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Hi drewp, according to the microsoft link you've just followed, there are certain options to take before using the registry edit as mentioned before the 3 steps accordingly. If you haven't removed completely AVG, please do so as it could be the problem in the very beginning. Use the AVG removal tool http://www.avg.com/ww-en/utilities just to make sure then check the difference. Another step to take is to run system file checker and then see if any corrupt and repaired files from the text output log. Check also the user profile service is in default or automatic. If nothing happens, move the profile account as described in method#2 from the provided MS link.

Created new standard user account: test1. Rebooted, still starts up logged into (waiting for password) sys admin account.

I have not deleted the two existing standard user accounts. And would like to avaid deleteing them unless it is manditory. Sometimes I have been able to log into them when the login screen showed "other users". I was able to type in the login name and the system did sucessfully log in. However the "other users" icon hasn't shown up in a while.

I believe the logon screen depends on history of previous logins. I will need more experiments but I think if last login was a password protected account, the next logon screen after a reboot will show only admin account. I last login before reboot is non password protected user account, the next reboot will show two choices for logon: user2 (not password protected) and "other user"

I believe the logon screen depends on history of previous logins. I will need more experiments but I think if last login was a password protected account, the next logon screen after a reboot will show only admin account. If last login before reboot is the non password protected user account, the next reboot will show two choices for logon: user2 (not password protected) and "other user"

I was thinking of the same thing of toggling password protected on and or off on the missing account icon during login but anyways, let us know of the result after running certain setting with the manage accounts (standard) particularly with the one that is not visible.

During install of Windows the first user created is typically part of the administrator group and the built-in Administrator and guest account is disabled. Showing a black down arrow in computer management under users. If only normal user accounts are made then the the built in Administrator account is activated. Same goes for changing the User admin to normal user, Windows will activate the built in Administrator account again. A administrator has to be active so policy changes can be made, otherwise you would have to boot into safe mode to activate the admin account and then make changes. No one wants to go through that process sometimes even safe-mode may not work properly. If you get Administrator at the prompt you should be able to click on the arrow there to change to all users, or ctrl+alt+del twice to get to the classic all user login with username/password. In order to hide the built-in Administrator, one of the normal users needs to be given admin privileges again or create new user with admin privileges. Then disable the built-in Administrator account if it doesn't do it already itself upon reboot.